luckymethod
Inspired
It's the Filipino accent mixed in his English. In the Bay Area tons of people that speak like that.
It's the Filipino accent mixed in his English. In the Bay Area tons of people that speak like that.
100% this.
Good point!
afaik, 61 is not officially a senior citizen in the US, and being in your 60s (or older) does not necessarily mean diminishing ability to play a musical instrument.
You gotta factor in years of substance abuse in there, bud. Whether or not the US considers someone a senior citizen isn't the point. The point is that our image of Kirk as the swashbuckling thrasher shredding 32nd notes is a bit out of sync with the fact that he is, technically speaking, old enough to be retired and raising grandchildren. The fact that he is still doing what he does is commendable when put into this perspective. So what if his chops are not as razor sharp as they were? Tbh, I've been hearing the whole "Kirk can't play his solos anymore"narrative for nearly two decades now! The fact is that he is up there with James playing some of the most intense guitar music on the biggest stages the world has to offer! I'm going to cherish that for as long as they continue doing it.
There is an obvious delineation line. I saw Les Paul at 92 years old play How High The Moon. He certainly wasn’t anywhere near the peak of his ability and it was conclusively age related.
Nothing puts my lights out faster than a rufie like Rick Beato. I do appreciate he is interviewing all these great and often legendary players. These things NEED to exist. He just comes across as the Mr. Rodgers of interviewers sometimes.
Yeah, he talked openly about his arthritis even when I saw him in the early 1990s.
Ah, no I don't there, bud - his personal health issues are not something I (or anyone not invited to) would / should / could "factor in" (in fact I'm not qualified to do any factoring at all wrt his abilities lol).
But there isn't really - age related affects vary from person to person, so comments that equate any given age group with diminished ability are incorrect.
They don’t always fly private. So right before Covid I’m in one of the Admirals Clubs in DFW Airport and in walks Kirk and James. I was in line behind Kirk when he was grabbing his hard boiled egg and yogurt (or banana). I mostly left them alone and there weren’t many people in there but they were super cool. And weren’t with much of an entourage. Maybe one or 2 others.
It’s awesome seeing these guys in the wild. I was on Petruccis flight back East from NAMM a few years back. I’m always scared to approach these guys but my wife usually insists.
Good story. A long time ago when I was uniformed, I went into a guitar center on my break. They were having an in store signing by Joe Satch. All the sales guys knew me and they saw me and said hey, want to meet satch? I said of course. I never asked for anything but they whisked me to the front of the line. This wasn’t cool at all to do because I’m sure looking back the optics of it looked horrible. Feeling the lines eyes drawing down on me I really couldn’t even enjoy the moment, even if I was only imagining their scorn.Oh…I punished Steve Vai when I was a teenager. For those unaware, a “punisher” is what many touring musicians call overzealous fans. The type that think they’re some kind of mythical god and act as such. I definitely did that to him, he was with his nephews, too.
Not only did I bombard the guy before he even opened the taxi door, but I definitely didn’t put a good look on his face when I handed him a print out of the setlist for that tour and I’m 99% certain it was that exact moment Steve Vai realized the internet wasn’t a tiny thing anymore. He wasn’t even out of the taxi yet and his face changed, he stared at the setlist in a “How the fuck does this exist?” kind of way, said he didn’t have a pen and handed it back to me. I start frantically screaming if anyone has a pen, anyone within shouting distance in NYC, he says he’ll be back out later and goes inside with his nephews.
He walked into the box office an hour later and I rushed him again, getting a pic and the autograph this time.
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He was very gracious and I’m sure that guy, in NYC, had a million friends and family to see and shit to do before the show, but he stood in that box office and signed/took pics with everyone. Old school, flash camera every 30 seconds, days.
I’ve talked about this before, but meeting him that day was an important one for me, not because I got to meet the guy I worshipped, but because I realized the guy I worshipped was just a regular human who had a devotion to his craft. He didn’t descend from the clouds to arrive at the venue, he got out of a taxi and struggled with a messenger bag, he wasn’t 7‘ tall like all the pics on my wall made him look, his shoulders were barely above mine and he was soft spoken. I don’t think I ever had more drive to go home and woodshed like I did that trip. Oh, and I never punished another musician again.
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